Seven-Figure TV Ad Campaign Slamming Key Antitrust Proposal Launched

The CCIA’s “Don’t Break What Works” campaign will launch its new ad, “Squeezed,” which highlights how the American Innovation and Choice Online Act will hurt Americans struggling amid record inflation, and possibly break services like Google Search and Amazon Prime, The Hill reported. 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association released a 30-second ad on Monday as part of its “Don’t Break What Works” campaign. The ad offers a new line of attack by focusing on inflation and arguing that proposed legislation would further raise prices for Americans.

This is the third installment of the tech-friendly ad campaign. Don’t Break What Works launched an ad, “Progress,” in January ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee markup of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992). The campaign then launched a second round of ads focused on how this legislation will break Amazon Prime. 

The antitrust bill targeted by the add is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.The legislation aims to block tech giants from giving preferential treatment to their own products and services. In practice, it could bar Amazon from placing its own products at the top of search results on its site or prevent Google from highlighting its own services. 

In January the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill with bipartisan support. The bill would effectively target Amazon, Apple, Facebook-parent Meta and Google, based on the definition of a covered platform. All four companies are members of the CCIA. 

Chandler Smith Costello, spokeswoman for the campaign, said in launching the ad that “Americans are feeling the squeeze of record inflation every day. We are urging Congress to avoid making it worse by breaking products that American consumers love.”

“While lawmakers in Washington should be focused on doing everything they can to provide American families relief from the high costs at the pump and the checkout counter, certain members of Congress are intent on pressing forward with S. 2992 – deeply flawed legislation that would ruin some of the products Americans use everyday, including products that can actually have a deflationary effect,” Smith Costello continued.

Backers of the bill have said it is necessary to stop Big Tech companies from preferencing their own products over those of competitors and small companies in search results and collecting nonpublic data of businesses selling on the platform.

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